On the last day of the year my wife, a lover of all things Sanrio, met for lunch at a newly-opened Hello Kitty-themed restaurant in the downtown area of Taipei. Afterward, she wanted to take advantage of our location and year-end sales and do some shopping. I waited patiently in front and took pictures of the sidewalk traffic, making sure not to wander to far just in case she wanted my opinion on something.

Taipei now has a second officially Sanrio-approved eatery and, thankfully, it involves far less pink. In fact, there’s no pink at all. Kiko’s Diner in Taipei soft-opened about a week ago and is set to have it’s grand opening January 1st. Contrary to it’s older sister Hello Kitty Sweets, which sits just a couple of blocks away, Kiko’s Diner is less of a novelty-themed restaurant and is more in the style of a business lunch restaurant in both appearance and menu items.

I’m sorry for the delay in getting part 2 out but I lost a week to Tiny Death Star. On the plus side, I did spend a small bit of time cleaning up part 1 (including making small corrections, adding chapter markers, and paginating for mobiles) and putting together an index page from which you can reach any part of the story. I also designed a cover…

After saying that I was going to do it for the past couple of years, this year I decided to give the National Novel Writing Month a go. Not only am I going to try, but I’m going to go for the brass ring: 50,000 words by month’s end.

Yes, it’s day 4 and I’ve just passed 5000 words so I’m a little behind. Thank you for your concern.

Anyway, I thought that I would post what amounts to the first 10% of the NaNoWriMo exercise here to get some early feedback. Please remember that this is very, very much a first draft. After I complete the novel at (hopefully) the end of November I will take the time and go back through for edits, grammar corrections, and so on. Right now I could use comments on how I’m fleshing out the protagonist and what little setup there’s been thus far. You can leave any comments, constructive criticisms, and suggestions at the end of this post.

Heres comes yet another selection of my recent street photos of Taipei. Most…in fact, all…were shot while exploring the small streets and alleys off Civil Boulevard near Taipei Main Station with my kids looking for Halloween costumes and props.